"The Black Watch - painting yet more tartan!" Topic

My latest blog and I'm about halfway through a battalion of the Black watch. I've given my 'recipe' for painting tartan. I hope that you find it useful. Click on the link for details:

link

Not a bad job on the tartan.

the tartan looks excellent

Ouch, that looks like a lot of work.

From most viewing distances I find the simple blue and green highlight is enough for all tartans but, I admire your tenacity and eye for detail.

Mine:
close

wargame distance

Trying to decide which to go for now,

Tally Ho!

That's amazing work on the various tartans. Do I understand correctly that you paint the tartan on paper first, then cut out kilts and attach them to your miniatures? That would drive me crazy.

Have you tried using a black pen, like a very fine Sharpie (or an actual artist's pen), to make the black lines? Did that work as well as a fine brush?

Thank you for the beautiful pictures and the photo-tutorial.

Beautiful job, most impressive tartans!

Oh, if you want to go crazy…try sticking/sliding the transfers/decals specifically designed for this range, from you know who. I tried, but I gave up.

Jesus wept (The shortest verse in the Bible)

Excellent tutorial. I mainly work in 18mm and 10mm and have a rather looser approach, but I may try your ideas.The only 28mm kilted figures I have done are WW1 infantry and, fortunately for me, they wore khaki kilt covers!

@ Oberlindes Sol Lic – if I understand the blog correctly, the paper stuff is just to show us ham- fisted types the principles of painting. He does explain that he actually paints straight onto the figure.

Those are outstanding,great job with the brush. deadhead I was wondering if those tartan transfers. where worth a try.

Well they are not expensive, but, as I recall, they only applied to four or maybe five figures in the Warlord range.

They were not easy to use frankly, but, with practice and persistence they could be very effective. (I found them great for 71st HLI headband and backpack. Hopeless for waterbottles)

The thing that puzzled at first is that these are not the "solid" colours that one is used to from say aircraft transfers/decals. In the latter, let us say you have a red/white/blue roundel. You can stick that straight onto a dark earth/dark green wing. Fine.

Here you need a white painted base, even for the kilt.

Sounds odd but essential. For the head band, it looks great on the paper, but slide it off and it is transparent, other than the red crosshatching. OK, white base and the glossier that is the better. Transfer sticking solution is essential and a final varnish does not hurt either.

Very fiddly and much bad language. But well worth it in the end. Even then, the kilt segments are not a perfect fit and remember what is exposed is stark white! So you do end up painting the very margins.

and yet….I found it very good for the simple flat face of the kilt and highly effective. The pleated back? Even with decal setting solution, I defy anyone to do that!

Those look good . Well done.

I have used the tartan transfers and found the Okay but its not a quick process. I would recommend putting them on as a first stage after priming.

Once happy with them then apply a GLOSS varnish to the kilt only to protect them and makes excess paint removal easier when doing the other stages.

Thanks for your kind comments. Olicana, your figures look great – I needed a 'paint by numbers' method to follow! Just to confirm that the exercise on paper was just that. I used the paper to show the step by step process. I paint straight onto the figures. I'm not going to claim that it is a quick method but is perhaps not as time consuming as I first thought. Obviously painting the kilts blue is a quick job, the green stripes don't take too long either. The black lining is the time consuming process but no more than a few minutes per figure. The secret that I have found is to have a good brush and to get the paint to the correct consistency so that it flows nicely off of the brush.
That all said, I'm having a break from Highlanders for a moment whilst I get on with a different period. I'll get the last 12 of the battalion done later in the month!